Picture this: Your homemade shrimp fried rice tonight for dinner!
This is a basic recipe, with ideas on how to make it your own, serving suggestions, and instructions on how to store leftovers.
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Yes, we love Asian takeout food, I wholeheartedly agree!
Yet sometimes not going out and attempting to cook those classics at home can be so rewarding and delicious.
In this post, you will learn to cook shrimp fried rice within 30 minutes and you will learn to use leftover plain cooked rice.
It's a great way to be more conscious of your food waste, making this a zero-waste sustainable recipe.
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🍚 What rice to use to make fried rice?
The best rice to make fried rice is cooked refrigerated rice.
Rice gets a bit crunchy in the fridge, and this rice doesn't get soggy when you attempt to stir-fry the rice.
Here is what you can do: Cook your rice in the morning al dente (almost through but still to the bite). Strain and keep it in a bowl in the fridge uncovered.
The rice will be perfect in the evening!
Or use leftover plain cooked rice or cook the rice super al dente (not completely through) and stir cook it.
Pick a quality rice variety, never an instant rice variety because those get soggy. I use basmati or Thai rice.
🔪 How to make Shrimp Fried Rice?
Preparing fried rice from scratch is super easy if you know how!
Here is an overview on how this works. The complete recipe is located at the bottom of this post.
Step 1
Prepare your veggies and keep your shrimp and cooked white rice ready.
Mix the ingredients for the stir-fry sauce.
Step 2
Heat up a shallow pan and stir cook veggies and shrimp.
Place rice into the pan and cover with the stir fry sauce.
Step 3
Stir cook rice, sauce, and ingredients in the shallow pan over high heat for 2-3 minutes or until done.
Garnish with some greens, such as sliced green onion stalks.
📖 Recipe
Shrimp Fried Rice Recipe
Ingredients
To Cook
- 2-3 Green Onion
- ½ cup Vegetables mixed, *see Notes
- ½ Tablespoon Ginger + Garlic *see Notes
- 6 ounces Shrimp
- 1 cup Cooked Rice *see post for info
- 2 Tablespoon Oil
Stir Fry Sauce
- ½ Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon Rice Vinegar or other mild vinegar
- 2 ½ Tablespoon Soy Sauce
- 1 Tablespoon Sriracha or Ketchup for no heat
Instructions
- Prepare green onions and vegetables of your choice. Slice them small. Keep green onion stalks seperate to use sliced as garnish.
- Keep cooked plain rice ready, ginger and garlic and shrimp.
- Mix together all the stir fry sauce ingredients. The sugar, vinegar, soy sauce and sriracha.
- Heat up a shallow pan or wok with the oil, wait for it to get hot. Add sliced onion bulbes and stir cook for a minute over high heat.
- Add slices vegetables and stir cook for 1-2 minutes over high heat too.
- Throw in shrimp and cook them over high heat too, stirring all the time.
- Add the cooked rice and pour the stir fry sauce over the rice. Keep the stove hot.
- Stir cook and mix with two spatulas, until the rice is evenly coated with the stir fry sauce.
- Garnish with the sliced green onion stalks and serve hot.
Notes
- Use mixed vegetables such as green peas, bell pepper, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli; See post for ideas
- Use chopped fresh ginger and garlic (ratio 1:2) or ginger and garlic paste (mixes in better).
Nutrition
📜 Flavor variations
I like to be flexible when I prepare fried rice dishes. You know how I handle my Japanese hibachi fried rice and my Chinese chicken fried rice.
It's not any different in this simple shrimp fried rice!
It enables you to get creative and, most importantly, to use up ingredients that are about to turn bead from your fridge.
Here are some ideas and ingredients to modify this recipe to your needs:
- vegetables — carrots, bell peppers, green peas, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower
- seafood — squid, crab, clams, salmon, surimi
- pineapple (as in Thai fried rice)
- spicy hot — extra sriracha, Tabasco, other hot sauces, chili peppers fresh or powder, curry powder (Singapore style)
- green toppings — Thai basil, bean sprouts, cilantro (aka fresh coriander), Vietnamese coriander, garden cress (a bit sharp), chives
- egg — see egg fried rice
- other sauces to the stir-fry sauce — a dash of oyster sauce, ketchup instead of sriracha for a no spice version,
- oil toppings to finish off the dish — peanut oil or toasted sesame oil.
🥣 Serving ideas
You can eat this shrimp fried rice on its own, yet you also have the option to serve something along.
Here are some ideas:
- Asian ginger coleslaw
- stir fried bok choy
- Szechuan dry-fried greens
- Spicy Asian Cucumber Salad by drivemehungry.com
- Asian Sesame Broccoli Salad by drivemehungry.com
🍱 Storing
Did you make too much fried rice? No problem!
You can place the cooked fried rice with shrimps into an airtight container and keep it int the fridge. Consume within 2–3 days.
To warm it up, place it into the microwave or just heat it up again in a pan over the stove top.
You can place it into a fireproof dish too and warm it up in the oven.
I don't recommend freezing cooked fried rice.
💭 FAQs
A wok is handy because it's shallow and cooks all the ingredients equally. Yet, I have cooked fried rice in shallow pans, and they turned out great too. So don't stop yourself just because you don't own a large, spacey wok.
Yes, you can use frozen shrimp (aka prawns in British English), just try to thaw it a bit to retain the quality. The same goes for frozen veggies such as peas and carrots. If you add them frozen to your pan, your fried rice will get soggy and the water and ingredients will jump up because of the frozen water in the hot stir-frying pan.
Look out for gluten-free ingredients. Rice is already gluten-free but your sauces might not be gluten-free. Use gluten-free soy, gluten-free vinegar etc. Take a look at the labels.
